Public housing or drug bazaar?

EXAMINER EDITORIAL WRITER

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, July 8, 1998

1998-07-08 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- WE WISH there were a way to halt the tendency of government officials, deep thinkers, politicians, concerned citizens and just about everyone else to (1) consider a serious social problem, (2) agree on a possible solution, (3) devise a program of some kind, (4) authorize expenditures of public funds, (5) appoint an administrator and (6) never give it another look.

How else in an otherwise enlightened society in the final years of a Century of Progress can we explain our blindness, a contemptible failure to deal effectively with the long-term ruination of public housing turned into drug bazaars? Only by looking elsewhere - an understandable tendency that afflicts journalists as well as mayors - could anyone fail to notice that even an outsider with cash might wait up to 5 minutes at many a public housing project before buying a paper bag with illegal powders, pastes or herbal substances.

That's true throughout America, but this week the focus is on San Francisco and its Housing Authority. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has granted in the past up to $1.6 million per year for drug prevention and education programs aimed at youngsters in The City's public housing. Instead, after an acidulous report by HUD investigators, San Francisco is the only large city to have its application firmly rejected.

The reasons include "lack of ability to manage housing," "too much staff, too little (in the way of) programs," lack of endorsements from the chief of police and Mayor Brown, documentation described as "how not to prepare a grant application" and a fund request that included only two items - money to pay for Mayor Brown's TURF project, which employs at-risk youths as security guards in the projects, and funds for administration. HUD kept score: The Housing Authority request was given 46 points out of a possible 100.

Perhaps we should be grateful. It got our attention. A drug market in public housing is a cancerous social catastrophe for all concerned, especially the children. It's time to end the blindness. It's time to demand accountability. It's time to tell our public servants that this is one problem that we can no longer pretend to file and forget.&lt;